The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated our musical community. We have lost friends and colleagues, and almost all of us have lost our work. Yet our future will arrive, and we need to do everything we can to ensure our health and safety when the opportunity to return to work together arrives.
Please join our distinguished panel on Friday, June 5, at 7 p.m. featuring guest speakers. We will cover a variety of topics including:
- Whose job is it to keep us safe at work?
- Who are the stakeholders and gatekeepers for deciding when we can go back?
- What is our Local 47 doing?
- And more…
Prepare your questions; we will be dedicating a substantial portion of the Town Hall to Q&A.
This Town Hall is open to all AFM Local 47 members. Registration is required. Link and password will be emailed upon membership verification.
About our Panelists:
John Acosta (Moderator) currently serves as President of the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 representing over 7,000 professional musicians in the southern California area. John also serves as an International Executive Board member of the AFM, Vice President on the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Executive Board, President on the Music Fund of Los Angeles Board of Directors, Director on the Actors Fund Western Council and Director on the Verdugo-Workforce Investment Board.
Cathy Repola serves as National Executive Director of the Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700), a role that she has held since 2016 when the Board of Directors unanimously appointed her to the post. The Motion Picture Editors Guild is a national labor organization that represents more than 8,000 freelance and staff post-production professionals, including picture editors, music and sound editors, re-recording mixers, story analysts, technical directors and more.
Marc Sazer, a native Angeleno, is an active performer both in the recording studios of Hollywood and in Southern California concert halls. He has performed for innumerable film, television, recording and other media projects. He serves as 1st Vice President of the LA Chapter of the Recording Musicians Association, and President of RMA. He is currently serving on the Local 47 working groups on post-COVID music for both recording and live performance.
Lara Wickes is an active live and studio oboist in Los Angeles. She is 2nd Vice-President of RMALA and on the executive board of RMA International. She also plays principal oboe in the Pasadena, Santa Barbara, and New West Symphonies. Lara is proud to serve as part of the Local 47 working group on post-COVID music for recording.
Meredith Snow is an accomplished violist who became a member the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1986 after three years with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. She appears often with the Philharmonic Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic New Music Group. Meredith has served on the ICSOM Governing Board for the past fifteen years and currently serves as Chairperson.
Dana S. Martinez, AFM Local 47 legal counsel, joined Bush Gottlieb law firm as a partner in 2018. Prior to that served as a partner in another Los Angeles based union-side labor law firm where she practiced law for over 17 years. She has extensive experience representing unions in both the public and private sectors. Prior to practicing law, she was a union organizer with H.E.R.E Local 11 (UNITE HERE!). Ms. Martinez is active with the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee.
Damon Tedesco has specialized in recording music for film and television for the last 25 years. He has recorded and mixed music for hundreds of commercials, TV shows, films and documentaries. He has also been the recording engineer and supported classes such as Film Scoring, Orchestration and Writing for Strings. He currently works as an engineer on the Newman Scoring Stage at Fox Studios.
Richard Wheeler, currently a part of the Eastwood Scoring Stage Crew (Warner Brothers, Burbank), has been in the recording industry for over 25 years. Focusing on large orchestra sessions, he has participated in the creation of hundreds of award-winning projects that span film, television and albums.
